


Stay with me and be a ghost tonight

by Caivallon



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, M/M, childhood trauma and healing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2019-01-20 01:00:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12421752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caivallon/pseuds/Caivallon
Summary: There is so much that Jon had to guess, had to puzzle out from the bits and pieces about his past that Patrick occasionally dropped, sometimes by accident (then he would immediately shut up, look away as if Jon would forget that he ever mentioned it). And sometimes, when it was inevitable, with careful purpose. Hansel laying a trail of breadcrumbs and Jon being the bird that picks them up greedily.And there is so much more that Jon had to guess, had to puzzle out from the words Patrick left unsaid, from the gaps between the words he used instead, from the silence when he shut himself up and looked away from Jon; biting his lip, punishing himself.





	Stay with me and be a ghost tonight

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for the [ **1988 bookfest** ](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/1988bookfest) and is based on ‘Winter Birds’ and its sequel ‘Comfort and Joy’ by Jim Grimsley. They are both beautiful and very atmospheric and I would totally recommend to read them. I tried my best to do them justice. 
> 
> As always I didn’t plan on writing such a long piece - actually I just wanted to do a photoset - but it somehow got out of control. I blame Jonny and Patrick because they both fit so perfectly for the characters in this book! Really, I have no idea why no one before came up with an AU inspired by those books ^.^ 
> 
> The title is from the Editors’ new song ‘cold’. 
> 
> I am not a doctor and also this is only a short story I wrote for fun, therefore I did not research as carefully as I normally would - please forgive me or correct me if there is something wrong. For some reasons I don’t know anymore I made Jackie a boy, at least in my head she is, in case you’re wondering. 
> 
> Also I'm not a native speaker so please be gentle with me. I had two wonderful and sweet beta readers who corrected this literally in the last hours before I had to post it. If there are still mistakes it’s only my fault because they are gold and I’m so thankful for their encouragement and patience. Thank you [ **Bee** ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/tatou/pseuds/tatou) and [ **Jenny** ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Linsky/pseuds/Linsky) ♥
> 
> I don't mean to disturb or hurt someone but I'm not good with tags and ratings, so please tell me if I should include other warnings. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy reading this story as much as I did writing it.
> 
>  [](http://de.tinypic.com?ref=faugdu)  
> 

**Stay with me and be a ghost tonight**

The house is surrounded by knee high grass, pale and sickly green and billowing in the freezing winter wind; the roof is sunken in, shingles are missing, gutters distorted and what once was probably white paint is now dirty gray, only a few shades lighter than the Christmas sky. It reminds him of a fat ugly spider lurking in the middle of an invisible net with the old and rusty plows, rakes and sowers scattered around like trapped little flies. 

Jon suppresses a shiver, tries to hide his reaction—his shock and discomfort at this sight. 

The house gives him the creeps. 

The house in which Patrick grew up. 

Patrick, who sits beside him, silent and wrapped up in his warm navy parka even though the heating in their rental Mercedes is turned on full blast. Who sits beside him, face pale as ever, eyes darker than usual. Who bites his lips and looks so lost and lost in thoughts and memories that Jon does not even need to hide his feelings. Because Patrick is not here with him.

“My sister and I had names for all the houses we used to live in. ‘Snake House’, ‘Lighthouse’, ‘Circle House’... sometimes we came up with the name right after we moved in and sometimes only after a while, like with this one.” The voice is flat, monotone, without any emotion, as if Patrick is not aware that he’s talking. “First we simply called it ‘Farmhouse’ but later Erica named it ‘Blood House’.” 

Jon turns his head and stares through the windshield at the abandoned building; he feels watched. He almost wishes Patrick hadn’t made them stop here. Doesn’t know what he hoped to find here anymore—answers, reasons, dreams. But now he only knows that he won’t like them, that they can only hurt Patrick, his family… and maybe even Jon. So he doesn’t ask. He stopped asking a long time ago because Patrick never answers, never tells him enough to understand before he falls silent, goes cold and withdrawn. 

When Patrick opens the passenger door of the car Jon flinches (maybe because of the freezing wind, maybe because he abhors the idea of evil eeriness creeping inside). Then he grabs his coat and scarf from the back seat and follows. Follows him around the skeletal remnants of a trailer, follows him up the rotten stairs onto the front porch where Patrick stops; hesitant and unsure. The fly screen is ripped: the dark fabric flaps softly in the wind, waving and beckoning them to enter. When he steps beside Patrick he can see him biting his lip, cheeks red from the sting of the wind. Carefully Jon places the warm cashmere cloth around Patrick’s shoulders, makes sure the cold can’t touch his neck, can’t crawl down his spine, wishes he could also protect him from the freezing ghosts of the past.

“What happened here?” 

But Patrick gives him only a short glance, as if he barely recognizes that Jon is here, next to him...with him.

Before he enters the house. 

And Jon follows him again. (As always. As ever.) Protective and protecting. Although (because) he knows that Patrick won’t need it, won’t allow himself to need it. 

The inside of the house is even worse than the outside: loose floorboards, damp tapestries, moldy drywall. Torn remnants of once-white-now-yellow curtains move in an untraceable breeze. There are tiny footprints and trails of mouse claws on the dusty surface of shelves, boards on the windows and the low coffee table, glittering shards of an ashtray spread like dangerous diamonds. The air is filled with the silence of lingering terrors, the stench of a never long-forgotten past, of precious and beloved blood spilled. 

“What happened here?” he repeats, after stepping over the threshold and closing the door behind him as soundlessly and gently as he can. 

The twilight that greets him is dense; solemn and suffocating. It has drained the blue out of the rug under the old armchair, the peach out of the pillows, the mustard out of the ripped sofa cover. 

Patrick moves through these rooms with the security of someone who’s finally come home after a long time. This is maybe what scares him the most. Because Patrick never moves like this when he’s in their house in Chicago, always roams through their shared space like a foreigner—like a guest. Too quiet, too hesitant, too considerate (as if he’s afraid that Jon could throw him out again). Like a ghost. 

Jon hates it. Because Patrick does not belong _here_ , never did. 

He watches him carefully as Patrick’s fingers brush over the backrest of the armchair, delicately touching the cotton padding that bulges from a tear in the leather like organs from a deadly wound. As Patrick makes his way over to the next room, avoiding the fragile pattern of shards on the floor as if it could bite him. As Patrick stands before the ruins of a metal bed frame, twisted and torn and rusty. The floorboards are sunken, the wood slanting, cracked. Underneath the bed gaps a wide rip like a wound through which ivy has slowly began to crawl in, taking possession of the room like a virus. Someone had apparently tried to take away the mattress but after discovering the huge dark stain that could only be blood, decided to leave it behind, leaning against the only window, shielding the room from prying eyes. 

“Was this your room?” It’s loud—an interruption in this contemplative and oppressive silence. An interruption to Patrick’s train of thought. Jon can see him flinching, finally coming back into the present, leaving the past. Finally coming back to _him_. Eyes blue and wide and framed with dark long lashes. 

Jon shivers. No one else could ever look at him like this. Could offer insights to his soul while at the same time hiding everything he ever wanted to know. 

“No.” He shakes his head, takes finallyfinally a step back from the splintered edges, sharp and dangerous as a mouth full of teeth. “It was my parents’ room. But sometimes we kids slept in here, too. When it was really cold and my dad was away at night working...or drinking. All together in this bed. My mom kept the door open so we could hear her working in the kitchen or in the living room sorting tobacco leaves. Sometimes she also sat beside us in the rocking chair, reading until she fell asleep.” 

Patrick pulls the jacket tighter around himself. His gaze lingers on the spot next to the bed where that rocking chair must have stood once. “You want to know what happened here? Why we called it ‘Blood house’ later?”

Jon nods even though Patrick can’t see him, has turned away once more. He wishes they could leave this ramshackle house, that Patrick could tell him in the car...far away from all these unstable floors, rusty nails, deadly edges. But he also knows this won’t happen. That he can’t ask for it, not when it took Patrick years to trust him enough with this knowledge, with these secrets.

“My father. That’s what happened. That’s what always happened when we had been happy for a few weeks. He went back to drinking. Like always. Just when we had started to believe that this time - in this house - it would be different.” 

The voice is so low that Jon has to take another step closer—but he would have anyway. 

“Of course it wasn’t. Different. Of course he started drinking again. Sometimes he even came home from work, exhaling that familiar sweet stench of sweat and whiskey. He usually kept a small bottle underneath the passenger seat in the truck. In front of us kids Mama tried to hide that she thought it was disgusting, that she hated it...that she was scared of him when he came home like that. But I could see it in her eyes. In the way she looked haunted, a deer in the headlights, just for a few seconds, when a truck passed by on the road nearby.” He nodded faintly in that direction. “Then she remembered that we were here, that Jack and Jess could see her. Then she was strong again, or at least strong enough to pretend to be strong.”

Patrick’s hands. The hands that Jon admires so much. They’re trembling now, barely visible, white knuckled around the lapels of his jacket. Jon can see the veins on their back: frail and bluish as the shadows under Patrick’s ever preoccupied eyes.

There is so much that Jon had to guess, had to puzzle out from the bits and pieces about his past that Patrick occasionally dropped, sometimes by accident (then he would immediately shut up, look away as if Jon would forget that he ever mentioned it). And sometimes, when it was inevitable, with careful purpose. Hansel laying a trail of breadcrumbs and Jon being the bird that picks them up greedily. 

How Patrick’s father died a long time ago, before he came to Chicago, how he used to have another younger brother—stronger and more robust than him. How this brother died. How this brother died because of the same hemophilia that somehow still allows Patrick to live. How much he loves his sisters and his mother. How much he misses them. 

And there is so much more that Jon had to guess, had to puzzle out from the words Patrick left unsaid, from the gaps between the words he used instead, from the silence when he shut himself up and looked away from Jon; biting his lip, punishing himself. 

How Patrick’s father must have been the reason he came to Chicago, how he still sometimes feels he should have died instead of his brother. How they all lived a tragedy that left them with the stain of sadness and bitterness. How it sewed them together and ripped them apart. 

“My father was insanely proud and also insanely jealous; it was bad before he lost his hand, but after that accident it got even worse. I know he felt useless, worthless, because he could no longer provide for us, because he had to rely on my mom to help him. And he was also quick-tempered and cruel. He could be sweet and gentle, careful and thoughtful in one moment and then in the next...you just never knew. You always tried to figure out in which mood he was when he came home, but you never could. Or you could but then Mama or Erica would say the wrong thing and everything changed. Sometimes it was even enough if he spotted me.” 

Patrick stops and Jon _wants_ to touch him. 

But he can’t; he knows if he does, Patrick would fall silent and then he would never unravel all those deep dark secrets, would never know, would never really have him. 

(He _will_ never know. And he _will_ never have him.) 

“He hated me.”

A better man would have disagreed, would have tried to console him. But Jon is not that man. He can’t forget about the frustration he felt at times...about Patrick’s independence, about his caginess, the coldness. 

“He hated my blood.” 

(Jon can relate. He understands. _Too much_. There is a part inside him that sometimes hates Patrick, too. That hates the dangerous blood that flows in Patrick veins. That is afraid of it.) 

“Normally I tried to be quiet, to be invisible—blend in with the furniture or leave the house until Jess or Jack called me because it was safe.”

“Did he hit you?” 

Patrick shakes his head. “No, he never did that. Not once.” 

Jon wishes he would not look as if he regretted this.

“Most of the times he hit Mama. Sometimes because of something she said or did. Sometimes because of something Erica said or did. Sometimes because he really wanted to hit me but he knew he couldn’t.” 

When Patrick turns around to walk back to the main room he doesn’t touch Jon, doesn’t even look at him—moves like he’s alone, seems again far, far away. But his words and his voice are clear, strong. Maybe he is here with him, maybe he cares. 

Maybe he just can’t bear Jon’s sympathy or his rage. (Maybe he is afraid there could be none of that.) 

So he follows, watches as Patrick brushes his fingertip over the dust-covered windowsill, scratches away some of the flaky dry paint. So he doesn’t rush over to stop him (visuals of those sneaky sharp edges cutting through the soft and too delicate skin, through flesh and veins until he bleeds and doesn’t stop). 

And for the first time Jon realizes that this could be the reason Patrick is always so guarded, so withdrawn and unwilling to talk about himself, his past and his dreams. 

He bleeds and bleeds and loses so much of himself every time. 

So he follows and stands behind him and watches, his heart throbbing loud and heavy in his chest, longing to cross the distance between them and close his arms around Patrick and hold him, hold him and protect him. Cover every inch of his skin to keep the blood in his veins and the words in his soul. Knows that he can’t, that this is too important to interrupt, that he can’t protect Patrick, that this time he has to bleed. Has to bleed for Jon, wants to bleed for Jon because something has to change between them. Soon. Because Jon can’t bleed as beautifully as he does. Jon can’t be the only one exposing his struggles, innards, soul. Because it would kill them. 

So he watches. And listens. Holds onto himself.

As Patrick revives images and voices from the past.

Of his siblings and his mother and himself in this living room on a merciless cold February night, listening to the gentle knocking on the door, the back door and the bathroom window. Alert and scared as the sound wanders around the house. Again and again and again. Driving them—driving his mother crazy. Walking circles, following the pounding from room to room, like a hound, always one step too late to catch it, to rip open the window or the door and face the ghost with the huge kitchen knife in her hand. Maybe she doesn’t really want to catch it. Maybe she’s only doing it to console her children. Maybe she’s too scared of who she will discover. But finally it stops. Finally they can exhale and rest. 

Of his father coming home: the heavy footsteps of the bulky work boots on the porch. The squeaking of the screen door, then the rickety wooden front door. Of the towering figure standing in the middle of their barren but strangely warm and cozy living room, taking in the scenery: kids together on the one couch, Erica helping with the dried tobacco leaves, Jessica holding Jack on her lap, Patrick pressing the ice pack against the swelling on his thigh where he bumped against the nightstand this morning—a nasty purple bruise, big as a baseball, hot and throbbing from the blood seeping out his flesh, aching as if his mother had stabbed that knife into it. 

Of his parents arguing. In the kitchen, in the living room, in the bedroom. His mother still with the knife in her hand, his father still in his work boots. His mother blaming their landlord for the knocking, his father blaming her for flirting with the landlord, encouraging him, inviting him over for a polite chat now and then while he was at work. For being a whore—a dirty bitch in heat.

“That wasn’t the first time, and it would not be the last time. The only difference from all the other times was that he wasn’t drunk. But somehow that made it even worse. His words were crueler, his voice colder, his hands and feet more certain and strong when he grabbed her and yanked the knife from her, when he dragged her down to the floor and he kicked her stomach. Again and again and again.” Patrick’s fingers still grip the window frame. Tighter now; Jon can see the white of his knuckles. 

“She was pregnant then. I don’t think anybody knew except me... it was something in the way she held her body, touched her lower stomach, looked out of the window without seeing anything. No one watched her like I did, that’s probably why none of us kids knew except for me.”

“Your father?”

Patrick shrugged. “I don’t think he knew. But the saddest thing is that I’m not sure he’d have acted differently even if he did know.” 

Jon shivers; it is too easy to picture everything. Maybe because they are here, in this creepy old house. Maybe because Patrick’s voice is so steady and emotionless. Maybe because Patrick is finally opening up to him and describing everything with all these words that he so rarely uses, with this shocking creativity and brilliant empathy that so rarely finds its way to the surface but whenever it does Jon can not help but admire it. Can not help falling in love with him even more. 

That Patrick trusts him with this insight, with his darkest secrets, his shameful past that Jon finds not shameful at all.

It is a gift. And Jon would never waste it, spoil it, or be unworthy of it. 

(Not even when he regrets it later and curses it. Not even when it tortures and haunts him. When he wishes he’d never learned about it.) 

“It was Erica who stopped him. She always was and still is the bravest of us all. She finally lurched forward and grabbed his thigh, threw her body between his foot and Mama’s belly, so that he could not kick her anymore. It was Erica, of course. But it should have been me who stopped him. It was my fault after all. It was always my fault. My blood’s fault. That made him hate her so desperately.” 

When Patrick turns around, it’s like a slap to Jon’s face—he didn’t expect it. Didn’t think that Patrick would be able to look into his eyes while telling him about his past. Didn't think that Patrick could face the fact that Jon knows about him, his family and his past. About his fears and hopes and long-forgotten dreams. 

(But Patrick has always been stronger than Jon, stronger than Jon thought and definitely stronger than he thought himself.)

His gaze has lost some of its fierce coldness but none of the sadness, the regret and self loathing. It equally makes Jon take a step back while also wanting to step over to him. He still can’t comprehend how Patrick can be so strong and defensive but also open and vulnerable—emanating this intense need of protection. It makes him take a step back and avert his eyes, so that Patrick can continue. It makes him utterly aware of the ghosts that haunt these barren rooms. 

As if he could see them if he only focused enough. 

See the little girl blocking her father’s foot from kicking her mother, the protectively curled body lying on the hard wooden floor boards, the other smaller kids hunched together on the couch: eyes wide with fear and shock, hearts pounding with cold hatred for their father. It was Patrick who stumbled forward to push open the door and helped his mother upright. Wind and snow hitting their faces while she kissed his temples and told him to run. Told them all to run, to run away to the car that was parked in the driveway— her face distorted with shame and alleviation, an expression so familiar that it somehow seemed wrong when it was missing. He could see all of the kids storming out of the elusive safety of the house, into the darkness of the November night and the even more feeble security of the old truck while their mother wrestled with her husband for the car keys. They squeezed onto the two front seats, Patrick and Erica holding their younger siblings on their laps, hushing softly to quiet them, their mom in the passenger seat, fumbling and cursing when the engine refused to come alive. 

Jon can see everything; Patrick’s voice paints a picture so disturbingly clear that he has to force himself to breathe. 

And Jon can hear everything because Patrick’s eyes reveal everything that his words can’t say.

The rattle of the dying engine every time his mother tried to start the car, the wheezing inhale of Jack on his lap, the terrible fear that crept over their arms and necks when they watched their father in the doorway—a black figure against the orange light of the living room, moving slowly but surely, with the malicious confidence of a predator towards helpless prey, hand holding the knife swinging loosely by his side. The shrill, violent screech when he dragged the blade over the windshield. The dull creaking of the glass after he started hammering against it with the wooden handle. The sudden silence of the kids, the pounding of his brother’s heart against his hand, the breathless curses of his mother. 

He can smell it. 

The icy clouds fogging up the windows because they were so cold and their breath was too hot with fear, disgust and pure hatred while they shivered awfully, clad only in thin pajamas, flimsy shirts and worn-out pullovers. The white bite of snow underneath their bare feet when they climbed out of the car and spread out on the moonlit field. The sharp dry scent of harvested wheat piercing through the soft soles of their feet, a short and merciless pain, like frozen needles, cutting through skin. Although none of them felt it for longer than two seconds—the panic of their flight, the numbing cold took over and whitewashed everything else but the red, rotten stench of danger. 

Jon can even _feel_ it. 

The hard ground underneath Patrick’s throbbing legs, the white flashes of knowledge that he would bleed, that he would suffer and pay with swollen feet, that he would not be able to walk for weeks and be forced to stay home from school, packages of frozen peas pressed against his soles, shivering in pain whenever he had to move. But it was nothing compared to the deadly terror when he saw his father standing above his mother after she attacked him to allow all her children to escape. His strong and weak mother. In love and hate with his strong and weak father. Constantly wanting to flee from him and always staying, always coming back to him, for him. Tears were running down Patrick’s cheeks, salty and stinging the tender flesh, rosy from the biting winter wind, when he turned around and started to run back. To help his mama, to protect her. To offer himself as a target for his father’s aggression. And then- the sudden shocking surprise of a small bump on the ground, of tripping. Of falling. Of biting deep into his tongue. 

“I was in the hospital for six days. Then the bleeding stopped. I could not talk because of the swelling and the cotton wool they had stuffed into my mouth so that I would not suffocate on my own blood. It tasted of antiseptic and chemicals and iron. Always the taste of iron even though they changed it almost every hour. And almost as often they had to exchange the empty pouch of blood for a full one. Mama never went home, she stayed with me all the time. My father was there, too. I remember drifting back to consciousness and finding him sitting on the bed, caressing my hair, changing the cloth in my mouth carefully, telling me about his day at work. Mostly he just stood silently by the window and frowned while he watched my mama doing it and sometimes he accused her of being a worthless whore, a bitch that slept with every stranger that just looked at her; wanton and dirty. My blood obviously was the curse and the punishment for her slutty behavior, he should not pay for all those bills, he should have let me bleed to death on that field. And all the time I lay there and thought that they should have let me...that my blood didn’t belong in my body that it was trying so hard to escape. That it wanted to be free.” 

Outside the sky has turned a deeper shade of gray; clouds low and heavy with snow. The gravel driveway is overgrown now and there are no fields of wheat anymore, only grass, hip-high and almost as gray as the sky. On the porch the old rocking chair sways gently in the wind, its dirty paint the only spot of color—it makes him think about Patrick’s eyes. The exact same blue, pale and sad.

Patrick stands beside him, breathing quietly, but otherwise soundless. He has said everything he needed to. And Jon has heard everything he needed to. 

He doesn’t know what to say. 

That he’s crying he realizes only when Patrick’s fingers brush over his cheekbones, softly over the skin underneath his eyes and delicately over the sweep of his lashes; when they come back they are as dry as before but they both know it and Patrick looks at him as if he’s afraid Jon is breaking. 

Maybe he is.

Maybe he is crying because Patrick can’t. Because Patrick is too composed, too detached and too hurt to voice it. Too used to suppressing it. 

Or maybe he is just crying because for the first time after years of knowing Patrick he feels he really understands him. Because Patrick finally trusts him with his past, with this missing puzzle piece. Because Patrick finally allows himself to need him. 

Jon inhales sharply. Suddenly it seems like there is no air in his lungs, in this room, in the whole world. The sound is wretched and full of pain and relief. 

“I wanted you to understand,” Patrick whispers. 

It seems like an apology. For bothering him with all this? For waiting this long? 

It doesn’t matter. Jon reaches for Patrick’s hand. Closes his eyes for short moments when the cool fingers curl around his. Wants to say that he does. Understand. But he doesn’t, not completely, not yet. So he stays silent and brushes his thumb over the tender back of Patrick’s hand, follows the tracery of the veins there. 

Jon clearly remembers the last time he did that. Not very long ago: on the day he came home earlier from work than usual. Patrick just had moved in with him a couple of weeks before and he still could not believe it. That someone was waiting for him, that his house was a home now. He clearly remembers it: the feeling when he stepped into the hallway, the feeling that something was different, something was not right. No lights, no music, no cats. Then he heard it: the shattering sound of glass hitting stone tiles, followed by a soft pained gasp and a frustrated curse. Then he smelled it: the pungent smell of antiseptic, so well known from the hospital, from his own hands before and after he touched a patient. Without taking off his winter coat he hurried to the kitchen. Then he saw it: the old cherry table (an heirloom from his grandmother) softly illuminated from the warm light above, the wooden surface cluttered with cotton pads, plastic wrappers and butterfly needles—red droplets of blood cling to them, gleaming like dangerous rubies. Patrick’s feet bare and vulnerable, face white and framed with curls wet from sweat. The hand holding another syringe with factor VIII trembling. The arm with the tourniquet snug around it dotted with various needle bites—bruises already blossoming. 

Jon clearly remembers it: The worry and fear that flashed through him like lightning when he counted them. Six. Six. 

And then the anger that followed these emotions because Patrick could have just called him. Instead of trying to give himself the injection. Again and again. Andagainandagainandagain. 

They fought. Again. The way they always did when Jon wanted to help and Patrick didn’t allow it. But that night Jon was so frustrated that he accepted it, that he stepped back when Patrick shook his head and declined his help. He stepped back and watched while Patrick tried it. Again. Crying with pain and obviously about to fail. He was so frustrated that he felt a deep grim satisfaction because Patrick had hurt him so much. He had hurt him so much that Jon wanted him to suffer—to suffer and beg him for forgiveness and help. Yet the scotch he poured himself tasted of blood and iron and failure when Patrick at last gave up and pleaded for him to come over and deliver him. The victory turned to ashes when Patrick started to get up and walk over to him. 

Bare feet. So so vulnerable. Diamond sharp fragments of glass. So so dangerous. Unprotected soles, Unprotected soul. 

Jon’s mouth went so dry he couldn’t even speak anymore as he watched Patrick staggering through the deadly labyrinth. Time stood still until Patrick reached him, reached for his arm, and his heart almost stopped working as Patrick finallyfinally fell into his embrace and Jon could help him. 

Later he sat at the kitchen table, more tired than he’d ever been after a 48-hour shift, head buried in his hands, trembling and heaving because he had never felt so lost before. 

Patrick was asleep in their bed, arms wrapped in bandages, skin gray from blood loss; weak and so desirable that Jon didn’t dare to lie beside him or disturb him. So lovable that he spent the whole night in the armchair next to the bed: close as always, but not close enough. Without taking his eyes from him, only tracing the prominent veins on the back of his left hand. He felt Patrick had given him enough that day. He felt he had stolen enough from him. 

He just didn’t know how much longer they could do this. Or should. 

As they now leave the house (one of the many) Patrick had grown up in, Jon can breathe more freely. The emotions that have clogged his throat and oppressed his lungs are not gone—but they are no longer a bottomless pit of unease. They have a name now. 

Pride. Regret. Sympathy. Tenderness. 

And deep, fulfilling love. 

Jon is not used to feeling something like this; never has for anyone else before. Maybe that’s the reason why it took him so long to recognize it. Maybe that’s the reason why his mother treats Patrick like a flatmate...like someone who’s just living with him when he’s actually the most precious person Jon has ever wanted in his life and so much more. Why his father doesn’t even treat him like a flatmate but like housekeeping staff, while Jon would spend every dollar he has ever earned to spoil and care for Patrick the way he deserves. 

Maybe that’s the reason why Patrick releases Jon’s hand whenever they are in public. Why he stopped saying it (only whispers it in the middle of the night when he thinks Jon is asleep). Or why he locked away his past and his soul until today. 

Now as they leave the house in which Patrick had undergone so much sadness, Jon doesn’t allow him to untangle their hands as usual. Instead he tightens his grip, hopes that the warmth of his own will seep into Patrick’s skin, that he will understand. 

It started to snow while they were inside: tiny and tenuous flakes dance to the ground, almost see-through in the gray afternoon light, glittering softly before they land on the rotting wood of the stairs leading to the porch, on the gray soil of the driveway. Clinging to Patrick’s long, soft eyelashes before they melt on the cool pale skin of his upturned face. His freckles are more visible, the strawberry blond of his hair more sweet—he is the most beautiful thing Jon has ever seen. 

And he is _his_. He loves _him_. 

Jon’s heartbeat accelerates until it feels like a small bird is trapped in his chest as he pulls Patrick closer. Against his body. As he cups Patrick’s cheek in his palm, turns it towards him to adore every single line of his features, every shade and shadow. As he traces the velvet bottom lip: plush and warm and so kissable. 

There is only one thing he wants more. Needs more. 

Patrick’s eyes widen. In surprise, in disbelief. And then he smiles; that soft and gentle smile. Small and secretive as if he wants to keep it for himself, as if it’s the best gift he has ever received and Jon almost feels ashamed that it took him so long to voice it when some part of him has always known it. 

(But there is no time to allow the shame to take root in his thoughts. There are more important things to do.) 

When his lips finally touch the tender and so so fragile skin of Patrick’s eyelids they tickle like they’ve been touched by a ghost. A touch that raises goosebumps, that runs like water down his spine—not cold, not unpleasant as the memories and tales this house provoked. A touch that is warm and relaxing, soothing like summer rain and he wants to drown in it. When Patrick’s body melts into his arms he’s the home Jon never had before, that they’ve both never had before. 

And when Patrick leans back to look up at him he knows that it’s not because their closeness is too much. It’s because he has to see it. 

So Jon repeats it, againandagain. To drink in and savor the expression on Patrick’s face; it’s infinitely precious and he would say it over and over because he’s not sure that he can ever get enough of the happiness Patrick reveals now. The shape and feeling of his smile, the trust and bliss in his eyes. The pulsing of his blood under Jon’s fingertips where they caress the angular cheekbones and jawline. 

Caresses the blood that runs in these veins. 

Patrick’s blood. The special blood. The blood that keeps him alive and that could kill him every day. The blood that made Patrick the person he is now and without which they would have never met. 

The blood Jon learned first to hate and then to love. 

Just like Patrick. 

When they head back to the car they are nothing but two dark clad figures in hollow and colorless scenery, but they are still smiling, walking side by side and close, they are something - more - than they were when they arrived here an hour ago; their footsteps aligned and secure, they are attuned, they are together. 

When they are back in the car, in the warmth and safety it provides, they are still touching: Patrick’s hand under his, dry and cold, the veins like a maze, the knuckles like glass, breakable and beautiful like the rest of him. They are still touching, but it’s not important—they don’t need that anymore to _know_. It’s because they want to. 

And when the creepy house finally disappears in the rear view mirror, they are still not speaking. As if the last words they spoke should be Jon’s confession of love. A sweet promise, a soft vow. Nothing more. 

Everything. 

—

End. 

Thank you for reading.


End file.
